Citroën Grand C4 Picasso perfect for families

Prices for the Citroën Grand C4 Picasso start from €27,045

Imagine it, three small children in baby seats lulled to sleep in the back of the car, your other half balmed out on a heated recliner massage seat beside you, and you, the driver, also getting the benefit of a heated back massage.

You don’t need to imagine it – Citroën has made it a reality in the Citroën Grand C4 Picasso.

While it’s not the most appealing-looking car – it’s a large, squat bus-like large MPV with nice LED lights its saving grace.

Inside, however, is a whole different story.

The Exclusive trim test car was beautiful, with a plush two-tone leather interior. Both front seat occupants were treated to comfortable heated, electric massage seats.

We were very impressed with the heated recliner

As you’d expect from a seven-seat MPV, there’s great legroom both in the front and the middle row, but the rear-most are best kept for the smallies.

These seats easily pull up from the boot.

Aimed at families, there are also pull down trays in the middle row with reading lights for kids. And there are air conditioning controls in the back.

Full sized individual seats coupled with a transmission tunnel-free footwell means three average sized adults would be comfortable in the middle row.

This car has a large boot as a five seater, but a very small one as a seven seater. If you choose seating over luggage, width-wise the boot is only about the length of an A4 sheet of paper.

Meanwhile, behind the wheel, drivers are sure to notice a couple of unusual things about the cockpit.

Once you’ve gotten past the enormous centred digital dashboard, your mind might turn to actually driving – specifically, where is the gear box?

Our test car was an automatic and the gear lever is actually placed on top of the steering wheel, US style. This took a bit of getting used to.

The cockpit in the Citroën Grand C4 Picasso is very futuristic looking

The dashboard did likewise as there’s no head up display so you have to look left to see your speed.

Everything is controlled from a touchscreen in the centre console and is displayed on a larger screen above. I found it very easy to use.

The Exclusive trim car I was driving was very well specced, with air conditioning, cruise control, auto lights and wipers, park assist, an excellent reverse camera, front and rear parking sensors, easy to set up Bluetooth, DAB radio, CD, Aux port and USB.

Storage was also well catered for, with a removable storage box between the front seats, a nice sized cooler box, ticket holder, and two cup holders.

There are also decent sized door bins with bottle holders suitable or larger bottles. The glove compartment is not particularly big, however.

Our route in this car took us around the city and on country, motorway and mountain roads.

An automatic, with paddle manual gears, the Citroën C4 Grand Picasso is quite fast when you put your foot down – in fact, much faster than you (or others) would expect.

While you could feel the gears changing at lower speeds, it was quite smooth at higher speeds.

It also had an automatic parking brake, which I don’t usually like, but this one stayed illuminated for quite a while afterwards to you could check that you’d set it.

The Citroën Grand C4 Picasso can easily switch from a seven seater to a two seater

On the road, I found it nice and smooth in the city and very smooth at higher gears on the motorway, where it cruised along. Acceleration from 0-120kph was great and as a city driver, I found the blind spot monitor very handy on busy urban motorway.

It also handled well on winding roads and was decent enough on the mountains.

It has to be said that the Citroën Grand C4 Picasso is a large car and it feels like a large car to drive. It’s very wide too.

While it has a super-futuristic looking interior, fun doesn’t come into the equation in driving this car and I much preferred the five-seat Citroën C4 Picasso in this regard.

Overall, however, the Grand C4 Picasso is very much a comfortable, luxurious family car, built to transport practically a large family with some home comforts thrown in.

The Citroën Grand C4 Picasso is available now, with prices starting from €27,045. Prices for the Exclusive model I was driving start from €35,495.

Tech Spec
Engine: 2.0-litre BlueHDi 150
Acceleration: 0-100kph in 10.2seconds
Maximum Speed: 206kph
CO2 emissions: 117g/km
Annual road tax: €200

Visit the Citroën Ireland website or its Facebook page for further details